Nothing to Hope For
by Allekha
Summary: Alana, Margot, and planning for their child.


A/N: Written for earlgreymanatee for All in the Family 2017.

* * *

They make Mason's funeral as much of a non-event as they can, and spend their energy instead on the one for Margot's son. It's a quiet day, sunny but cold, and Margot doesn't cry. Alana keeps an arm around her shoulder and listens to her, later, when words tumble from her mouth, feelings Margot probably hasn't been able to tell anyone else before.

And then, before the grief has even left Margot's eyes, they start planning the wedding.

They get married very soon after things calm down; Alana thinks, late one sleepless night, that after they've killed a man together, having each other until death is not so much to ask for.

It's a nice wedding, nothing too extravagant. They invite Alana's family, her co-workers, some of Margot's acquaintances that can't be snubbed. Alana isn't sure if she wants to invite Jack, but she does; she isn't sure if she should invite Will, but she does. They both show up with congratulations and factory-sealed alcohol for gifts. Will's smile is even smaller and shakier than usual, but he manages it.

Nobody breathes a word about Hannibal. For a moment, at least, they can neatly excise him from their lives, though Alana knows in her heart that it won't last long, that his influence is not something that can be cut out so cleanly.

The ceremony itself is quick. They're both wearing suits; Alana can't keep her eyes off Margot, how the sharp lines of the fabric make her so beautiful, how she looks confident and strong and smiles when she says her I-do.

Alana's parents have only met Margot the day before, but they seem to like her, chatting with her all through dinner. They don't ask too many questions as to why there are none of Margot's family members here, which is a relief. Alana is ready to give Margot a new one, a family like hers with loving parents and healthy communication and, she hopes, no-one getting murdered.

Margot wakes her up that night with bad dreams. It's not the first time, and sometimes it's the other way around. Alana has nightmares of glass falling like glittering snowflakes, gunshots echoing in her ears. Margot dreams of any of a whole litany of horrible things. There's not much to do about it except hold each other until the fear drains away.

Alana would recommend a therapist, but she's not sure she knows any good ones anymore.

~!~

Verger money gets them the best fertility doctors in the country, the kind that don't blink when they say it has to be a boy. While they're at it, they get each blastocyte tested for every genetic disorder they can, make sure there are no places where the unknown defects in Mason's DNA line up with those in hers.

It's all so abstract – cells and blastocytes and fetuses. It's more like trying to figure out what grad schools she wanted to apply to than planning for a baby.

Margot holds her hand though the actual procedure; it's uncomfortable, but over quickly. Alana has spent a lot of time recovering from her injury, doing physical therapy, struggling up stairs and across long distances. Uncomfortable has a different meaning, now.

The drive back is silent. Margot looks at her, and away, and at her, and away. Alana runs through the stages of fetal development in her head, overlays them on a mental calendar. And she thinks of everything she has learned about the inheritability of mental illness, the connections between genes and psychopathy, and has to remind herself that biology is not destiny, certainly not when it comes to the brain.

Besides, this isn't Mason's baby. It's half hers, and in a way it's _almost_ a quarter Margot's, since siblings share half their DNA. And that's just the genetics; raised in a good environment, one that doesn't encourage animal torture and gloss over cruelness, the odds for their child are even better.

Alana touches her stomach and tells herself, again, that it's not Mason's child, it's theirs, but that doesn't stop her from wondering, _but what if he acts like him, what if we can't help him, what if_.

That night, Margot won't let her go, and they stay up past the point where late becomes early, but she doesn't take her shirt off the whole time, and won't let Alana touch underneath. It has to be the scars, and Margot must know by now that she doesn't mind them – they make her sad, to see them and know how she has suffered, and also proud, to know that Margot has made it through all of that and is still here. But if she doesn't want to face them tonight, Alana knows better than to force her to do so.

Margot touches Alana's own scars, traces them. She's explained where all of them come from, before and she can hear Margot recite their causes in a mumble: accident when she was a child, glass when she fell from Hannibal's window, surgery for her broken bones.

~!~

Alana lets Margot do most of the shopping for baby things: crib and toys and clothes, everything made to the highest quality and safety standards. Part of this is the exhaustion – she's taking on new work responsibilities while also battling nausea that leaves her precious few things she can eat. Part of this is that she likes seeing Margot take over the rooms and give them new purpose without having to worry about how Mason will prod and taunt her for it, and she has a better eye for aesthetics than Alana does.

She only intervenes once or twice, when that eye hits a little too close to Hannibal's tastes for her comfort.

It all starts to feel real when she's standing in the completed nursery, lighter than the other rooms in the mansion, but not painted in pastels. It's elegant, as much as a baby's room is elegant. There are brightly-colored books already on the shelf, and soft toys, and even a rocking chair by the window.

They stand there, quiet, Margot tucked against her side, and Alana feels the growing weight in her stomach – coming along perfectly, according to the doctor, and Alana hopes that includes the brain. Then she breaks away from Margot to sit in the rocking chair, tries it out. She looks out the window and imagines holding her son here. Or maybe watching Margot hold him, falling asleep here, something she should have been able to experience already.

Margot comes over to her and helps her up out of the chair. Then they go eat dinner, which is slowly becoming a normal event, rather than something that has a cloud hanging over it: Margot tense like she expects Mason to speak again, Alana trying to tell herself that the meat on the plate is from a pig or a chicken, not a person.

When they collapse into bed that night, Margot touches her rounding belly and calls it _our baby_. Alana repeats it back to her and asks what they're going to name him. Margot, it turns out, has many ideas, both grand, traditional names and modern ones with a classic touch. They argue in murmurs for what feels like hours; the thing that Alana wants most in a name is that it's practical. Easy to spell and easy to pronounce. She's had enough conference nametags spelled with two n's to go for anything too difficult.

They narrow the choices down a bit before Margot goes quiet. Alana guesses that she's thinking of the son she never had the chance to name before he was already gone. Margot tucks herself against her side, touches her stomach again. Spreads her hand there, like she wants to know he's in there, like she wants to protect him, and her fingers feel warm and soft and strong.


End file.
